Losing A Part of Me

Losing a Part of Me will be a series of articles and insights as to how I am going to lose this weight.

Losing A Part Of Me

Ever wanted to lose weight and tried so many different things that you finally said "the heck with this?" Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Come along for the ride and lets learn from one another as we lose a part of us.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Traveling tends to bring out the worst in some of us - when it comes to eating properly. Especially when we are trying to lose weight or maintain where we are. Trust me, I know how to binge and I certainly know how to "lose focus" and eat any and every thing I see. But my friend Craig Ballantyne has wrote another good article that I want to share with you. This can help!!!

When you travel, you need nutrition tips for fat loss. But it isn't easy to lose fat on the road. Fortunately, these 3 under-rated but highly effective diet secrets can help you to get lean and stay lean when you travel.
The secret is to follow this #1 nutrition tip:

1 - Be accountable.

By promising you that I'm going to record my every meal, I have to make the right choices or I'll suffer embarrassment in front of thousands of people when I send out my food diary from the trip.
So you must find someone to be accountable to as well. It can be online, or it could be a friend at work or someone at the gym. All that matters is that you have someone to hold you accountable for your nutrition choices!
By the way, just keeping a food journal has been proven to increase weight loss. So even if you don't show it to anyone, holding yourself accountable will be enough to help your beat a fat loss plateau.
The next tip works really well for the final phases of dieting, or when on a business trip.

2 - Eat the same food everyday (sometimes).

Okay, I know, this doesn't sound like fun, but my friend, a world-famous New York City trainer, uses this when he has to lose the final 5-10 pounds of fat for a photoshoot.
And he is able to get super-lean by doing this.
Of course, this isn't a long-term strategy, but when you need to get "advanced results", you have to take advanced measures.
So when traveling to a business seminar, find the right choice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and eat the same thing at each meal. That will minimize the damage - or even help you lose fat while on the road.
Or if you are in the final phase of a fat loss program, stick to the meals that are the best for your fat loss and easy to prepare.
You can treat yourself when the job is done.

3 - Increase your fiber intake.

I've stolen this idea from another friend, a nutrition expert, who gave some
amazing tips on how to eat more fiber.
Fiber fills you up, helps you eat fewer calories, and may even help you eliminate extra bad calories.
Now here's a few ways for you to get more fiber in your diet:
- Blend in raw nuts with your smoothies & protein drinks
- Add vegetables to your omelet (I add broccoli, spinach, & mushrooms)
- Eat fruit between meals instead of high-calorie granola bars
- Snack on raw nuts instead of white-flour products like pretzels
(I had a pretzel addiction in high school, and now I eat almonds)
Those are simple and under-rated, yet proven ways to improve your nutrition and lose more fat at home and while you travel.
When I travel, I start my day with a high-fiber, nutrient dense blender drink, then eat some fruit, and have a big omelet with vegetables before I head to the airport after lunch. And then I stay on track so that I can tell you all about my meals, workouts, and adventures when I get back.
Just say NO to bellyfat when you travel!

Monday, October 11, 2010

I admit to making alot of mistakes in working out and trying to get control of my waistline and losing weight in general. I want to share three workout mistakes in fat loss programs that I recently came across. My friend Craig Ballantyne is an expert on these matters. Take note as to what he says and better still, apply to your regime so you don't make the same mistakes that I and many others have made.

Are you making these common mistakes that often RUIN people's well-meaning, yet fatally flawed workouts?

Mistake #1 - Using a Traditional, Ineffective Warm-up
Unless you struggle with nagging injuries - and I realize many folks do - you shouldn't be wasting your precious time by spending 5-10 minutes on a cardio warm-up. It does nothing for you.
Eliminate it and use a bodyweight circuit warm-up instead, such as bodyweight squats, stick-ups, mountain climbers, prisoner lunges, and pushups
.
Mistake #2 - Using Traditional Straight Sets for Resistance Training
If you get your program out of old-school magazines, it probably recommends "straight sets" - meaning you do a set, then rest a long time, then repeat the set, etc.
But eye-opening new research shows that non-competing superset training - there you use "opposing muscle groups" in alternating exercises - BOOSTS your metabolism more than traditional straight sets. (Reference: J Str Cond Res 24:4 2010)
And again, the short burst fat loss workouts you'll find online fix this mistake - by using non-competing supersets and tri-Sets (three exercises) to boost metabolism.

Mistake #3 - Using Traditional Slow Cardio
I won't bore you with the research I've discussed time after time showing you that cardio is inefficient and ineffective for fat loss.
Needless to say, you've probably learned the hard way that cardio doesn't work. After all, you probably found the short, burst workout system when you were looking for something that worked better than cardio.
And that "something that works better" is interval training, as well as metabolic resistance training. And you'll find an approved metabolic resistance training circuit that will knock your fat loss results out of the park when you do something like dumbbell squats paired with dumbbell chest presses, followed by dumbbell rows paired with hamstring curls.
Now go out there and burn it up with better workout strategies.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

We live in a "quick fix" society where we want things and want them now. A good friend of mine will often equate it with having things the Burger King way, that is having it your own way. I have been thinking alot about fat burning and the proper way to do so. I read another piece by Craig Ballantyne that really hit home with me concerning "fat burning". Instead of blogging my way through this important topic, I will share his piece with you here:

At this time of year, we can use every last tip to help avoid
holiday weight gain.
So here are 5 more fat loss tips for beginner & advanced readers.

1) No liquid calories (with the exception of a post-workout drink).
Get rid of all the juices, the sodas, and the sports drinks. Liquid
sugar is the last thing you need when you are trying to lose fat.
You must also limit your alcohol intake - especially if you are
adding mix to drinks...that is a double calorie bomb! A single "Jackand Coke" is over 200 calories (100 calories from booze and 100 calories from mix).

2) No fast food.
Do not eat at fast food restaurants. Even if you choose what you
think is healthy, remember this:
Fast food restaurants are all about profit.
And in order to profit while giving you cheap, quick, and easy to
prepare foods, the quality of the food ingredients will be poor -
especially the protein.
Now you might have read that you can still make healthy choices at fast food restaurants. But you know what, that's just
politically-correct opinion. If it's fast food, it's poor food.
Walking into a burger joint and grabbing a chicken breast on a
white bread bun with a piece of old lettuce and a half-green,
half-pink tomato is "barely" healthy eating.
The politically-incorrect truth is that it's going to take time and
effort to eat properly. You will have to plan, shop, and prepare
healthy meals. You will have to spend time cleaning, cutting, and
cooking your food. That's the truth.
But believe me, it will taste so much better than fast food, and
healthy eating will make you more alert. Eating fast food will make you feel terrible, and will make you want to have an afternoon nap at your desk.
Make one small improvement to your nutrition everyday for the rest of your life.

3) Eat more fruits and vegetables.
If you are eating 2 servings per day, then go up to 4 servings per day by the end of the week. And even if you think you are doing great by having 5 servings per day, you still need to double that (take 2-3 weeks to work your way up to 10 servings per day).
Stick with fiber-rich fruits and vegetables - organic if possible.

4) Eat 1oz of almonds or walnuts per day (1/2 oz in the AM, and the other half in the afternoon).
Most nuts are roasted in oils (possible source of trans fats), so
stick to natural or dry-roasted nuts.
Don't panic...this small amount of nuts won't make you fat, but will fill you up and help you lose weight.

5) Be consistent with your workouts.
And make sure the workouts are efficient and effective. To make it easy for you to follow, stick with the Turbulence Training fat burning workout system.
It doesn't matter if you train in the morning before or after
breakfast, or at night before or after dinner, or at 1pm on days
when the moon is in line with Saturn...don't worry about the
details, just train consistently.

That there are 5 fat burning tips that are guaranteed to bring results. Want real results and "want to burn the fat off"? Incorporate these and see what happens.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Ran across an interesting article by Craig Ballantyne the other day that I felt I had to share. Hey, we all want to "burn the belly fat off" don't we? Craig has some great insight and some I plan on incorporating. Check this article out.

By: Craig Ballantyne

Best Ways to Burn Belly Fat
I often get asked, “What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly?” People want to know if aerobics is better than strength training, or if traditional cardio exercise is better than intervals.
Well, to say I've done them all would be an understatement.
With over 15 years experience helping others, training myself, training for sports, spending countless hours in the gym, AND actually conducting laboratory research studies on different exercise methods, I'm pretty confident in knowing what works and what does not.
But first of all, I want to frame my responses. I'm going to talk about what works for people that have a limited amount of time to exercise, mostly because I expect your readers don't have 90 minutes per day to devote to a workout, unlike the typical audience of a fitness magazine.
That's why there is a huge disconnect between some of the information found in magazines and the ability of the reader to apply it to their lives.
We just don't have 6-8 hours per week for exercise, nor do we need it. If you're a triathlete, you might need that, but not someone that just wants to lose fat and gain muscle.
Having said all that, the bottom line for getting a better body is...
Use bodyweight exercises to warm-up, strength training supersets to build muscle, and then finish your workout with interval training to burn fat in a short amount of time. I've structured my system so that you are in and out of the gym in 45 minutes, three times per week.
You'll do 5 minutes of bodyweight exercises to warm-up. This is a much more efficient approach than spending 5 minutes walking on a treadmill, which really doesn't prepare you for anything except more walking on a treadmill.
Then we move into the strength training supersets, where we use two exercises performed back to back with minimum rest between each. This cuts our workout time, while still giving us maximum results. We only need 20 minutes for this, and we'll use basic exercises, and sometimes even more bodyweight exercises, depending on the client's goal for muscle building.
And finally, we'll do 18 minutes of interval training. A warm-up, followed by six short intervals at the appropriate fitness level for the client, interspersed with short periods of low-intensity recovery. Finish with a cool-down. And that's the workout. Again, about 45 minutes total.
Compare that to what most people do, which is run, jog, cycle or use the cardio machines for 45 minutes straight. Sure, that will burn calories, but it doesn't build a better body.
In fact, there are a few "dark sides" to long slow cardio, including less-than-optimal results, the potential for overuse injuries, and it is an inefficient form of exercise. If you only have 30-45 minutes for your workout and you spend it all on a cardio machine, when are you going to train the rest of your muscles and sculpt a better body?
So the best way to burn belly fat is with a combination of strength training and interval training. It’s fast, it works, and it’s fun!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I have been comtemplating how to go about losing this extra thirty pounds or so. I know that exercise with emphasis on proper diet is the right way to go. But to be truthful with you, I don't want to give up what I don't want to give up. My wife would tell me to get a grip on things. Easier said than done.

What does getting a grip on losing weight really mean? Let me share a few ideas I have collected as to how I plan on getting a grip:

1 - I must east less. Not saying I must eliminate meals or observe diets where I will starve myself. But rather, I neeed to eat less in my meals. In other words, no stuffing myself. "Starvation diets" can result in bad eating habits, even "Compulsive Eating Disorders". Just need to eat less at meals.

2 - Eat at the start of my day. I have had a bad habit of not eating until lunch as of late. Would justify eating a big lunch. Alot of sense that makes, huh? In fact, there's nothing like rev-ving up your "metabolism" than with eating a healthy breakfast. No, that doesn't mean peanut butter Captain Crunch or a big honey bun. A real breakfast.

3 - Calculators not necessary for monitoring food intake - "Losing weight" can become such an obsession for some folks that they resort to extremes like using calculators to add up the calories. I am not going to be a slave to the cause. I know that if I will just eat until I am satisfied, that will be enough. Doesn't mean I can eat until I can hardly breathe.

4 - h2O - Lastly, plenty of h20. The good Lord knew what He was doing when He created this stuff. It does wonders for whatever ails you, my Mom use to say. Seriously, there is nothing more helpful to "losing weight" and keeping it off than drinking plenty of water. I have heard that eight (8) ounce glasses a day is the magical number to keeping the body hydrated as well as keep the metabolism running good. Two glasses before each meal is especially effective in proper digestion.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

A close friend of mine has struggled with being overweight all his life. In his early teens, he established some bad eating habits which led to both compulsive eating disorder and bulimia. His body went through all kinds of changes, mostly being overweight. There have been times when he has done some major "crash diets" and would lose a considerable amount of weight only to gain it back in a relatively short period of time. As far as the bulimia goes, he struggled with this for over 10 years or so. Thankfully, he realized what he was doing to himself and was able to quit. My friend was obsessed or possessed for many years, the weight had to go.

Still today my friend has not got to his desired weight, but he is getting there. There is still an obsession or possession (if you want to call it that) to reach his goal. Let me tell you what he has been doing. First, he has cut back on the starches (sugars, bread, potatoes - especially french fries) and has incorporated a steady diet of veggies. Then, he tries to "consistently exercise". One of the routines he uses is the T-Tapping that Teresa Tapp promotes. Intense workout to say the least. He wants to start doing some "resistance training" but I don't think he's started yet. So he is definitely on the right track.

At the present time, I am also considering options to shedding about thirty pounds. No, I am not obsessed or possessed by the desire to do so at any cost. I have learned from my friend as to what I can and cannot do. The weight has to go but it will be the right way.

Friday, September 24, 2010

I have heard time and again that the key to weight loss is getting one's metabolism running on high test. That is, speed it up. The premise is, if one's metabolism is burning more calories, you have got to lose, right? Well, its a little more complicated than that.

On the one hand, if you eat more, metabolism can speed up. But calorie intake becomes an issue. On the other hand, if you starve yourself, your metabolism slows down. Another issue with starving oneself is the problem of obsessive compulsive eating. With that you may find some with problems of anorexia and/or bulimia. So many things to consider with metabolism concerns.

Scientific research has proven that one can eat a low calorie diet for periods of time without seeing a change in the metabolism. Lets say someone also does some moderate weight training at the same time, what you'll see is very little loss in muscle mass. What you will see is fat loss. Thats a "good thing" for those looking for fat loss.

More than one study has been done on this phenomenon. Its not rocket science nor is it about some magic pill that will take care of fat loss. The answer is quite simple for us simpletons. We need to cut back on the calories and exercise.